Jackson Jambalaya

If the local "Main Street media" doesn't swallow their pride and run with this I give up on them. This is *important* stuff. Thank you for the truth.

JPS gets a boatload of federal funds vs the other districts. Wonder if that is related to its higher percentage of kids getting tagged as "special"?

40% @ JPS while JPS enrollment has been declining for the last decade.

THEY ARE JACKSON!!!

Higher percent of iEp students? Check those reports, especially Desoto.

Fish, do you have the Harrison County stats?

What do they need education for in jail anyway?

If I remember correctly, Harrison has over 14K students and 46 or so percent are teachers.

Did you ever consider that the larger the district, the more employees there are and the more employees it takes to run a district, the fewer of them are certificated? Stop with the surface bullshit and dig deeper for answers for a change.

5:05 - there are 30K students in JPS and 33K in DeSoto.

So what's your point again?

There may be a good explanation for the disparity, but I haven't seen it yet. Props to JJ for posting this.

5:05, you're asking a lot from people who believe that dinosaurs are 5,000 years old and that Obama is a Muslim. Gator wrestling is their strong point, not critical thinking.

Scale economics is completely lost on the dig deeper blowhard @ 5:05 PM.

505. JFP wannabe?

JPS has more than enough money- for bloated administration. Not too much for anything else but sports teams.

And then we wonder why we are 50 out of 50 in education..

5:05

I taught in JPS, and I couldn't help but wonder what some of the people with non teaching jobs in the school district did all day.

I am the person from 8:43.

8:31 is right. JPS has bunch of administrators who aren't really needed. If teachers in JPS had the power to suspend students (or do much of anything for that matter) then the school district would need even less administrators.

Kingfish can you bring to attention the survey that roughly 1,500 JPS employees took where two-thirds of them said their work environment feels out of control daily or weekly, and despite that, the fact Cedric Gray was given four more years if I am not mistaken on his contract?

Last data is 2013? Do you have a more recent update? Which of these districts use a private company for bus transportation and which employ their own drivers?

Last data is 2013? Do you have a more recent update? Which of these districts use a private company for bus transportation and which employ their own drivers?

This data is a little old...2013. I wonder what the more recent data would indicate? I also wonder whether contracting out for services like bus transportation instead of hiring your own drivers skews the data among districts since some do and some don't use these private services.

I love 'Eduspeak' words like 'certificated'. Certified seems like proper word usage. 'Certificated' sounds like bullshi*t.

So and so has BEEN certificated. /////// She is certified. She has received a teaching certificate. She is liscenced and certified to teach.
She was certificated. ????????????? Did you go out of your way to pull that word out of your a$$?
I'm so glad that you used it properly as it seems to be mainly devoted to the educational arena. Pfffft. Do words like this justify your job?

Certificated is the proper word. Sorry you don't like it. It's sort of like Bona fide. As in 'you're a bona fide dumbass. It's also accurate to say that you were graduated from high school, rather than you graduated from high school. I can't help it that you don't like proper grammar. But then you probably like words like irregardless, don'tcha?

The larger the district the larger the tax base.
The larger the tax base the more money in the spend-pool.
The larger the pool of tax money the more money for personnel.
The more money for personnel, the more you can hire (duh).
The more you can hire, the higher the cronyism factor.
The higher the cronyism factor, the more needless positions.
The more needless positions, the more the disparity percentage.

Really? How tough is this to understand?

When I was in school we never heard of assistant superintendents, assistant principals, attendance officers, student services coordinators, counselor assistants, curriculum coordinators, assistant curriculum coordinators, compliance officers, grant oversight personnel, assistant meal planners, physical plant logistics oversight managers, and a hundred other made-up positions for these bureaucracies.

And it's true that once a large district is inundated with tax money and grant positions, the more positions there are allocated to the staffing chart and the fewer the number of certificated personnel percentage-wise. You could slice all of these non-teachers by 80% and function well. But you'd put a ton of friends and relatives out of work.

The disparity in the academic achievement section says it all. Spending more and getting less for it. I would be interested in seeing how JPS compares against other schools in major urban areas relative to bloat and academic achievement.

Though it sounds counter-intuitive, and an interesting metric, it doesn't, standing alone, tell us much about why JPS is performing so poorly. A recent PEER study was unable to find any association between teacher/student ratio and student outcomes. But it did find school districts do not collect in a systematic way data needed for effective decision making. http://www.peer.state.ms.us/reports/rpt589.pdf The PEER report itself falls short of the mark because it does not consider the importance of considering data about the kids and the greater community. By way of example, if most of your students come from households with no home computers or internet wifi, and no transportation to the public library, you face a different teaching challenge than you do with students whose households have multiple computers and tablets and smart phones and business speed wi fi. As for JPS the critical question is not the teacher-student ratio but what the rest of the staff hired by the district is doing. Counselors, nurses, instructional materials, even security might be a wise use of funds.

Ok,

Certificated is wholly accurate. All that means is one has a certificate, which is not necessarily analogous to being certified.

You were graduated is NOT accurate. To be graduated, you would be scaled and is something completely different than graduating a school or course.

Lastly, I realize this theory is lost on anyone within academia but economies of scale are the whole purpose of having county school districts. The number of students should not effect the number of administrative positions at nearly the same "graduated" rate as the addition of students.

Until every individual becomes upset with the amount of taxes they have to pay in to support the inefficiencies and redundancies of government, it will only get worse. When the private sector averages between 50%-60% of their income being removed in some form of tax or fee paid to a local, state or federal government AND with the fact that the exponential increase in the number of individuals employed by government (they don't pay taxes IN, they pay taxes, but their income is derived from taxes, therefore they are simply giving back the taxes paid by someone else), more people should be upset with things such as the disparity in educational spending.

old but informative

http://www.edchoice.org/Research/Reports/The-School-Staffing-Surge--Decades-of-Employment-Growth-in-Americas-Public-Schools--Part-2.aspx

9:09 - yes, the % of teachers isn't why JPS is failing its students. The students are coming from backgrounds requiring a lot more intervention than the schools are able to give.

But it does suggest that JPS is wasting money while failing.

I think it makes perfect sense for JPS, with the poverty level amongst its students, to have a higher % of non-teacher personnel. They should be academic coaches, after-school workers, guidance and psych counselors, whatever it takes to give these kids starting from the bottom of a pit they didn't dig, a ladder up.

But if that's what they're doing, it isn't working. And the suspicion is that instead of hands-on folks, JPS is bloated with administrators who never see students.

I'd love to know whether that suspicion is true. If we had a real newspaper, we might find out. As it is, we'll just have to see what JJ comes up with now & again.

As a JPS teacher, it is absolutely true.

"Consultants" that come in and don't do anything.

Administrators who think they know how to manage students but never see them and the rare times that they do, they don't account for the fact that if the kids do show them any respect it's because they have suspending privileges which we do not.

The discipline numbers are fake because what would warrant an immediate suspension in a Madison Central is nothing compared to other kids who are doing much worse violence, etc. throughout the school. So if I even attempted to escalate situation, say, where a student physically touched me (real example) I would just get a "Can you not manage your own classroom" from a Principal at worst, at best he would just take the student and not suspend him and sit him in the office to save face on discipline numbers.

Maybe at least we need a comprehensive in school suspension program. With teachers who are actually trained to work with those type of kids and to get them learning, etc. So any immediate classroom distraction is automatically sent to ISS and forced to stay and school and learn, while I have my classroom free of distractions and can focus on the kids who actually want to learn.

But these are all just surface level issues. The problem is so deep and systemic and societal it is overwhelming to even begin thinking about.

### Metro School District Ad Valorem Millage Rates (2013-2014) ###

Jackson Public Schools = 82.44 mils

Clinton Public Schools = 67.94 mils
Hinds County School District = 65.0 mils
---> AVERAGE = 61.45 mils <---
Pearl Public Schools = 60.44 mils

Madison County School District = 54.55 mils
Canton Public Schools = 50.39 mils

Rankin County School District = 49.42 mils

So I see where they put the total employees and total teachers. What other positions are there in a school district other than administrators, secretaries and janitors?

If you want to see waste in education drive down Highland Colony and look at the 10 million dollar building that the Madison County school district office has recently purchased. It is the old Ergon building and is another waste of tax dollars by people that have no accountability on how dollars are spent.

9:18; When one starts off his post with an obviously inaccurate statement or claim, the rest of his post is rendered ineffective and without credibility. You are a case in point. Claiming that the phrase 'was graduated' is 'wrong' is not only wrong, itself, it's a classic display of ignorance accompanied by a pompous claim of knowledge (which you obviously lack).

Please report to the dunce stool and choose a colorful pointed hat from the rack.

Google is your friend. Feel free to use a computer in study hall.

"Certificated is wholly accurate. All that means is one has a certificate, which is not necessarily analogous to being certified.

You were graduated is NOT accurate. To be graduated, you would be scaled and is something completely different than graduating a school or course."

My psychiatrist colleagues have a word for invented vocabulary words: neologism .

It is used in conjunction to make a diagnosis of a mental disorder.

In other words: "certificated" means you are probably certifiable (and that is real word).

PS Ask someone knowledgeable to explain why you should have used the correct word "affect" instead of the word you chose, "effect".

I ARE A COLLEGE GRADUATE (and thank you, Sen. Blutarski)

Question:

What would Jackson look like in 10 years if today they started giving every school age child a voucher for $6,580 (70% of what we are now giving JPS per pupil). The voucher could be redeemed at any public or private school in Jackson.

Answer: a rocket taking off. Parents would no longer have to leave Jackson because they couldn't afford to pay for a decent education for their children. People would move back in to Jackson to get the vouchers. JPS would be vastly improved because they would have to compete for vouchers by providing a good education. And we would have a plethora of good quality schools. (Or at least schools that met parents' needs and expectations.)

This is a problem apparently over the entire State. There shouldn't be more than 25% which are non-teachers at any school.

$10 million for the Ergon building? Wow, somebody knew somebody.

12:21, that's silly. Kids raised by parents who aren't educated and don't care about education aren't going to suddenly become good students because they go to a private school.

All that happens is that tax $$ goes into private companies' pockets, which is what the voucher movement is all about.

JPS needs to be fixed, not abandoned. The GOP controls the state gov't. What have they proposed?

Then, using your "silly" logic @1:14 PM, those students will never be good students regardless of venue. If a private school can't be the solution because of the "parents who aren't educated" then neither can a repaired JPS.

1:14,

Nice dodge. As if the Republicans held the throne for the past how many decades that saw our schools go from bad to worse.

And tell me again about all of those awful Republicans in charge of JPS, running it into the ground.

This isn't a D vs R fight. At its core, it's a fight on what we as a society value for our kids. There is no screaming from Jacksonians or even the surrounding areas about accountability. And if we're being real honest, crowing about an "A" rating from the state is akin to being crowned the tallest midget. That just means you're the best of the absolute worst.

There needs to a wholesale change in how we educate our kids. For some reason, we value testing vs learning. We should be focused on how best to turn out graduates who can speak, think and write clearly (hint: think classical education). We should also recognize that the world needs ditch diggers, too. Vo-tech should be on the table for those not interested furthering their education.

But that is entirely too un-PC to happen. It would also cost too many friends and relatives their government-sponsored J-O-B.

Au contraire, 12:21. Private schools will not tolerate students who disrupt because "their parents don't care about education." They can't accommodate disruptors because other parents will pull THEIR kids out of the school. And when they leave, all you have left is something no different from PUBLIC school with its violence, chaos, or, at best, LOW expectations and excuse-making. (Excusing kids from behaving civilly and meeting basic academic expectations due to students' bad home lives). Let the kids who really want to learn go to private and charter schools. How can you deprive them?

Serious question: What would happen if a district declines federal funding? Would it still be subject to all of the federal mandates?

2:03

moot

Rich people have choices. Poor people do not. Vouchers give poor people choices. Why does the Left refuse to help the very people it claims to champion?

2:03 WTF kinda question is that??? When has ANY school done same?

4:19,

Why is the question a WTF moment? Look at the federal funding percentages for Rankin, Madison, Desoto counties. Do you think they could raise the difference locally through taxes? I think there's a chance.

12:03; Your 'psychiatrist friends' need to shit-can their diplomas if they suggest certificated is not the proper term for one who has earned one. Were they graduated from Alcorn?

I wonder if anyone has considered how Jackson Public School District financial statements will look when they record their share of their unfunded pension liability for June 30, 2015 IAW GASB 68? My calculations has them recording a net pension liability of $280 million. Considering their net position at June 30, 2014 is $37 million it won't look good.

Reaching hasty, often unwarranted, conclusions seems to be the standard operating procedure for ThusBloggedAnderson. While it's possible for any 'suggested conclusion' to be accurate, it often requires investigation and at least some detailed discussion. Anderson typically bloviates, postulates and conclude-ulates all in one breath. He is also an idiot if he thinks intervention is a primary goal of the public education system. These people are not miracle workers, they are not prison counselors and they are not responsible for basic parenting.